


Keeping Hamlet Sane

by snowballjane (spycandy)



Category: Slings & Arrows
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 20:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycandy/pseuds/snowballjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post season 1, the cast make it through the run of Hamlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Hamlet Sane

**Author's Note:**

> Not a new work. This was written for a 2007 ficathon but it was languishing on a flocked LJ post and I still rather like it. 
> 
> The original prompt from inlovewithnight: Geoffrey and Jack (from s1), Hamlet (the play in general or the character specifically) PG13

  
  
  
**Week 1** :  
  
“It’s amazing! Every single night I’m learning new things about acting!” Jack jabbed his finger at the air to underline his point, causing the beer in the bottle he was holding to slosh and fizz. “For the first time tonight, I felt like all that fishmonger business with Polonius was actually funny. I must have just gabbled through it for two nights, but if you get the timing right it just  _works_. And you know how you can tell it works?”  
  
“How?”  
  
“Because you get the audience reaction right in the moment.”  
  
“See, I told you so,” said Kate, giggling and also gesticulating with her drink. “Did you see what Ellen did with “speak no more”? Was that new? It was just heartbreaking.”  
  
Across the bar room, Geoffrey Tennant watched the young couple, half envying, half fearing the intensity and joy with which they dissected their third night’s performance of Hamlet. They were all aglow with excitement, new love mingling with the buzz of putting on a good show, but that was what made it so dangerous. They were flying high, but there was a long way to fall.  
  
The whole cast were doing well, considering. Sure, they might never again capture the spine-tingling rawness of the first night’s terrifying, barely-prepared performance, but as they became more assured, night by night the performance became more nuanced.  
  
And they’d survived the hateful, hurtful first round of reviews, which had been as unfair and ego-bruising as Geoffrey had predicted to Richard. Only Kate had won grudging praise from Basil, which she had handled tactfully in front of her fellow cast members, brushing it off with “understudies always get extra credit”.  
  
The pair at the bar glanced his way, then Jack said something inaudible before they both hopped down from their barstools and wound their way through the crowd of actors towards their director.  
  
“So... any notes on tonight, boss?” Jack's posture was cocksure, but his acting still wasn't good enough to hide the uncertainty in his voice. There were a dozen things Geoffrey had ready to mention. His comic delivery really did still need work. But for now it was very interesting to watch them finding the play for themselves.   
  
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” he said. “And get some rest, it's a tiring play.”  
  
  
 **Week 2** :  
  
Two weeks of playing Hamlet would be hard on anyone, or so Geoffrey assumed since he himself hadn't lasted nearly half that long in the role. At least Jack had stopped throwing up before performances – for a while Geoffrey had started to worry he was going to have “Hollywood Star’s Eating Disorder” headlines to add to his troubles. But last night’s fight scene had been sluggish and by the time Jack had gone to take his curtain call tonight, he was visibly dragging his feet across the boards.  
  
Geoffrey followed him back to his dressing room and firmly closed the door behind him as Jack flopped into his chair and sunk his head into his hands.  
  
“I was terrible tonight, wasn't I?”  
  
“Your diction was sloppy for the whole of Act V and your swordplay had all the passion of a limp lettuce leaf.”  
  
Jack groaned and Geoffrey could have bitten his tongue off for just how much what he'd said sounded like something from the mouth of Oliver Wells. There was no need to berate the young man when it was clear that the problem was stamina, not acting ability. There were only so many performances you could get through on adrenaline.  
  
“Look, it's a grueling play and anyone would be exhausted...”  
  
Jack's head snapped up. “Stop treating me like I'm about to break Geoffrey! I’m fine! You can tell me my performance sucked! Fuck! I'm not going to run off again! Or have a nervous breakdown on stage!”  
  
“Well...” started Geoffrey, the word alone expressing volumes of doubt.  
  
His lead actor slumped back in his chair. “Man. Sorry Geoffrey. I guess I am a bit tired.”  
  
“Look, I will not risk pushing another actor to the edge of their sanity, like Oliver did with me. Once you're there, it's all too easy to fall over that edge.” Geoffrey's barely thought out pep talk was interrupted by a knock at the dressing room door.  
  
“Hi,” said Kate, peeking into the room, her face bare and pink from scrubbing off another night’s mascara and tears. “Are you ready?”  
  
Jack glanced at Geoffrey, evidently seeking permission to leave. Geoffrey sighed.  
  
“Weary with toil, haste thee to thy bed.”  
  
“Goodnight Geoffrey.”  
  
He followed the couple out into the corridor. As they opened the stage door, Geoffrey caught sight of a throng of autograph hunters and he winced for the exhausted Jack, but the young man squared his shoulders and stepped outside. Several girls in floaty dresses immediately flocked around Kate, squealing.   
  
Watching through the door, Geoffrey saw Jack take one of the girls’ cameras and organise a group pose with his girlfriend and her fans. Eventually the pair made their escape, arm-in-arm and laughing as they vanished into the night.  
  
Geoffrey turned back in to the theatre smiling. His Hamlet might be weary, but he was at least a very long way from heartbroken. Kate and Jack were not Ellen and himself and he was Very Definitely Not Oliver.  
  
  
 **Week 3** :  
  
Flapjacks and vitamin pills were seeing them through it. It had been Anna’s suggestion -- when Geoffrey had bemoaned his lead actor’s stamina problems, she had chattered something about the slow energy release from oats, then later in the day deposited a large bag of flapjacks and a jar of vitamin C capsules on the artistic director’s desk.   
  
A second batch of reviews, from the weekly and monthly magazines had also perked everyone up, since each was a variant on, “It might be an unfashionable opinion, but Jack Crew’s Hamlet is a real find.”  
  
Just as Maria called the half hour, Geoffrey caught sight of Jack. The backstage corridor lights were always unflattering, but Jack looked horrible. Red-eyed, skin pale and puffy like old pastry dough and obviously queasy. He looked worse, if that were possible, than he had at the dress rehearsal. He was striding back and forth, muttering aloud, while reading from his script.  
  
“Jack?”   
  
“I can't remember it. It's gone,” said Jack. He looked back at his script, “ _Is it not monstrous that this player here..._ ”  
  
“The speech or the whole play?”  
  
Jack went paler yet, his eyes wide with terror. “I don't know. Oh God.”  
  
  
“Fuck!”   
  
What was wrong with the boy? Had he pushed him too hard after all? He thought he'd been a supportive director, coaxing rather than bullying his star, learning from his own mentor's mistakes. But here was history, repeating itself, which could mean only one thing...  
  
He found her blithely browsing in the gift shop, a denim jacket covering her Ophelia costume, shaking her head over a cloth shopping bag bearing the quotation “Our copper buys no better treasure.”  
  
“What did you do to him?” bellowed Geoffrey.  
  
Kate jumped, knocking the shop table and causing an avalanche of plushie Yorick skulls to tumble to the floor. “Who? What? Him?”   
  
“Jack! He's trying to re-learn the entire script. He looks more like he should be playing the ghost! And you break his heart and then wander off to the gift shop like you haven't a care in the world.”  
  
Kate looked confused and horrified. Geoffrey thought back over the previous five minutes. “Wait. I may have leaped to conclusions there,” he added.  
  
“Jack's upset?”  
  
“He's in pieces, but why? He's been doing really well. Fuck. Did somebody say something to him again? Richard!”  
  
Before he could storm off in search of yet another unwitting victim, Kate grabbed his arm.  
  
“Wait, Geoffrey. Jack's parents are coming to see the performance tonight. That's who I'm looking for a gift for. He seemed a little nervous about it earlier, but I thought he was fine.”  
  
“Well he's not. He thinks he's forgotten his lines.”  
  
“I'll go and talk to him,” said Kate, running in the direction of backstage, leaving Geoffrey with nothing to do but scoop up the fluffy skulls and rearrange them on the table.  
  
He found them in the wings with just five minutes to go before curtain up. Jack was still murmuring lines, but at least without a script in front of him now. Kate was rubbing gently at his shoulders.  
  
“I hear you've got family in tonight,” whispered Geoffrey although he was unlikely to be heard above the hubbub of theatergoers taking their seats.  
  
Jack gulped and nodded.  
  
Geoffrey floundered for something to say to bolster the actor's confidence. “They'll love it.”  
  
“Not necessarily.”  
  
“Ah...”  
  
“No, it's okay,” said Jack, glancing at Kate and mustering a weak smile. “I think I can use it.”  
  
He gave the best performance of the season so far.  
  
  
 **Several weeks later** :  
  
“Geoffrey, can I borrow a rehearsal room?”  
  
“Well, there's nothing in rehearsal now, so I don't see why not,” said Geoffrey, not looking up from the mess of actor profiles strewn across his desk. “Check with Anna.”  
  
“Thanks,” said Jack, and left.  
  
Geoffrey continued to reject potential Anthonys to play against Ellen's Cleopatra, a plan he had not yet broached with Ellen herself. It was only once he'd carefully crumpled and binned every single one that he recalled the interruption and wondered what it was Jack wanted to rehearse.  
  
He found him alone in the large empty space, wearing track pants but bare-footed and bare-chested. From the doorway, Geoffrey watched the young man execute a complex series of movements, almost like a dance, except that it was punctuated by punching thin air and blood-curdling yells. The routine ended with an abrupt bow and Jack raised a hand in greeting.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“Empi Kata -- kind of like a fight with an imaginary opponent. I had to learn karate for a movie a while back. It keeps me sane.”  
  
“Fighting imaginary people keeps you sane?”  
  
“So long as they don't start fighting back, I figure I'm okay."  
  
Geoffrey laughed. They had almost made it to the end of the run and his star's sanity – or what passed for sanity in the theatre at least – was still intact. Thank goodness for imaginary people! Thinking of which, maybe it was time to lay some more ghosts to rest.  
  
“Well, while we're in the rehearsal room we should work on some ideas I had for the scene by Ophelia's grave...”


End file.
